Funeral Mass for Jim Verkuilen
Dear brothers and sisters,
There is something fitting about our gathering at the altar of the Lord today to entrust Jim into the merciful hand of the Lord. Today, the twenty-seventh of August is the memorial of Saint Monica, the mother of our heavenly patron Saint Augustine.
In his marvelous book, Confessions, which everyone should read, Saint Augustine recounts for us a moving moment from Saint Monica’s deathbed in the Roman port city of Ostia:
One day during her illness she lapsed into unconsciousness and for a short time was unaware of her surroundings. We all came running, but she quickly returned to her senses, and, gazing at me and my brother as we stood there, she asked in puzzlement, “Where was I?” We were bewildered with grief, but she looked keenly at us and said, “You are to bury your mother here.” I was silent, holding back my tears but my brother said something about his hope that she would not die far from home, but in her own country, for that would be a happier way. On hearing this she looked anxious and her eyes rebuked him for thinking so; then she turned her gaze from him to me and said, “What silly talk!” Not long afterward, addressing us both, she said, “Lay this body anywhere, and take no trouble over it. One thing only do I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.” Having made her meaning clear to us with such words as she could muster, she fell silent, and travailed as the disease grew worse.[1]
We will bury Jim’s mortal remains in Pleasant Plains, where he devoted so much of his energy for the benefit of his fellow citizens, but we will remember him at the altar of the Lord here in Ashland and wherever we participate in the Holy Mass.
Why did Saint Monica make this request of her sons? She did so because she knew something that most of us have forgotten, namely, that while the Eucharist does indeed point back to the moment of the Last Supper it also points forward to the future to the wedding banquet of the Lamb (cf. Revelation 19:7).
So, just as the Mass stretches back through the centuries to Christ it also extends forward through the ages to the kingdom of heaven, where Christ will gather all his saints to himself in this meal. One might say that every Eucharist defies time. It unites the distant past with the future far, though we are more accustomed to thinking of the Mass as carrying us back in time rather than forward.[2]
With these sentiments in heart we have gathered at the Lord’s altar to participate in the foreshadowing of the eternal wedding feast, asking the Lord to look with mercy upon Jim, to forgive all his sins, and welcome him into his kingdom.
What does it mean to remember our loved ones who have gone before us? We can be sure that Saint Monica did not mean to remember particular things about her, as we will surely remember Jim’s smile and his joking and quipping. Doing so is not bad – in fact, it is good – but is not what Monica meant. What does it mean to remember our loved ones, then, if not to hold them in prayer, to remember them to the Lord, imploring that they might see God (cf. Job 19:26)?
We have
come here today to the altar of God because, as Saint Augustine tells us, “The
renewal of humankind, begun in the sacred bath of baptism, proceeds gradually
and is accomplished more quickly in some individuals and more slowly in
others.”[3] When he was baptized, Jim
was clothed with the baptismal garment and told to bring it unstained on the
day when the Lord comes. He was also entrusted with the light of Christ and
told to keep it burning brightly. Let us, then, remember Jim to God at his
altar, asking that any stains on that garment be removed and that the light of
Christ may dispel every darkness, that having been enlightened by Christ he may
pass from death to everlasting life to share in the joy of the angels and
saints. May Saint Monica take him by the hand and present him to the Lord Jesus.
Amen.
[1] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, 9.11.
[2] Terrence Klein, “St. Monica’s gift to her son, St. Augustine: A love for the Eucharist,” America Magazine, 1 November 2018. Accessed 23 August 2022. Available at https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/11/01/st-monicas-gift-her-son-st-augustine-love-eucharist.
[3] Saint Augustine of Hippo, The Way of Life of the Catholic Church, 1.35.80.
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